Letters have been sent to the heads of all life assurance companies by the Minister for State in the Department of Enterprise Trade and Employment, Mr Noel Treacy, requesting information about procedures within the individual firms for dealing with "mis-selling practices and the churning of Insurance Policies". The Minister also wants to know whether persistency records "are and have been audited and the action taken by your company to: 1) prevent mis-selling and churning, and 2) to deal with customer complaints in this regard, including any compensatory measures undertaken where customers have suffered losses as a result."

The Minister, acting "as Regulator of the Insurance Industry" requested "an immediate response" to his letter, dated July 1st. A spokesman said the Minister's request is part of the wider investigation by the Department into mis-selling and churning raised by revelations of widespread churning of clients by members of the Irish Life salesforce and brokers.